I’ve got whiplash! Twenty-ten just started - didn’t it?
The cool thing about having a birthday on January 2nd is that I get to experience practically the whole year the same age...because there isn’t a whole lot else to celebrate when your birthday follows one of the biggest hang over days of the year.
What I find cool is, I essentially get to wrap my "Fresh Year Approach" with my new age, so I am theoretically, living my new age, 32, somehow more improved over the previous year's model.
This is what is going to make 2010 (say it with me, "twenty-ten, not "two-thousand and ten") better than 2009. I AM GOING TO LET GO.
Isn’t that what our grandmothers told us to do? Why don't we listen to old people?
I seriously have to learn to let go. What the heck am I holding onto bad feelings for? What purpose does the past serve me if the past made me: depressed, angry, anxious, regretful? There is absolutely NOTHING I can do to go back and change things.
I am not saying, I want to ignore everything I've learned up until now, I am saying I want to let the bad sh*t go.
How can I let go of what that "asshole/bitch/whore" has done to me? I have so many more ways to insult them. I have so many acts of revenge to entertain. But why? These people (or perhaps just their actions) who have "wronged" me are draining precious time and mental resources that they don't deserve.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned in the last couple of months (thanks therapist!) is forgiveness, forgiveness of others and most importantly forgiveness of myself. Yikes, that one is hard. I literally cringe thinking of the sh*t I have pulled. Seriously, as I am typing this, I feel embarassed. Its like you can see my embarassments as I am thinking them. And for some of you reading this, you probably have!
I have made some seriously stupid decisions in the last couple of years and at times I have wanted to divorce myself. My decisions have lead to a complete change of who I am, and I am not saying its for the better or worse. But I have changed.
Now what do I do with these changes? Do I desperately pretend like the last few years haven’t happened because I vow to now do better? Because I can’t and that’s okay. What is done is done, what was said was said, my feelings were what they were. I am now learning to accept it all.
What I will do now is accept my feelings and most importantly myself. With all my flaws and all those scary things about myself I would like to pretend don’t exist. They are there, like my brown eyes. They are me. The good, the bad and the ugly.
I apply this to others as well. I recognize that while I struggle, those around me do too. I have found new empathy for others. I am less quick to judge and more willing to listen. I am changed. I am older. I am a work in progress. I am 32.
J
